I write as a person of faith
to urge you to adhere to a strict interpretation of Congressional intent of
Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Act, which enables the United States to be a
leader in an international effort to ensure mandatory reporting of payments to
governments in the oil, gas and mining sectors.

The Presbyterian Church (USA)
joined the Publish What You Pay coalition in 2008 because, for more than one
hundred years, we’ve had ties to Africa and other parts of the world that are
endowed with natural resource wealth, and paradoxically, are burdened by
massive poverty. Corruption and embezzlement sustain this reality and we
believe that access to information about revenue paid to governments by oil and
mining companies is a way to empower citizens to hold their governments accountable.

Further, our church is an
investor, with hundreds of thousands of dollars in our portfolio tied to the
extractive industries. Clear reporting will help us to be better stewards, both
as individuals and as a denomination.

We welcomed Section 1504 of
the Dodd-Frank Act, as it enables the Securities and Exchange Commission to
require the reporting of payments made by extractive companies to governments, and,
makes this information available to civil society. Strong leadership
demonstrated by the United States in passing this legislation inspired others,
such as the European Union, which has proposed similar rules. Do not succumb to
pressure by the extractive industries to dilute these critical regulations.

Transparent financial
reporting not only enables our partners to hold their own governments
accountable for natural resource revenue; it allows shareholders to see the
business practices of the corporations in which they invest. Project-level
reporting is the only way for investors to assess risk on a per country basis,
rather than attempting to decipher aggregate numbers for the entire country by
year, which is the preference of the oil industry lobby. Do not compromise on
project-level reporting as you begin finalizing the rules that govern the extractive
industries.

Given the behavior we’ve seen
on Wall Street, and the financial crisis that has damaged our own country, it
is hard to argue against more transparency in corporate practices. It is
essential that corporate reporting be mandatory, with provisions for
enforcement.

The moral test of any economy
is the impact it has on people and on the creation as a whole. It is clear that
huge sectors of the world’s population do not benefit from our globalizing
economies and the rules that increasingly benefit corporate interests. Worse
yet, many are further impoverished by the ordinary functioning of the economy,
reflected here in the workings of the extractive industries and the corruption
that is systematically embedded in the practices of some governments.

The biblical vision is not
maximization of freedom to seek individual benefit, corporate profit or
national advantage in a global society, as our denomination’s resolution on Just Globalization warns. Rather, that
vision calls forth a compassionate, sustainable society that furthers global
community. It is time to shed light on corruption and to adhere to a strict
interpretation of the provisions within Dodd-Frank that support transparency.